UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I do some scripting during lunch on the macbookpro at work. I have the necessary folders on a thumb drive from my mac at home, and move them with the mv command to the mbpro so I don't have to change the script itself to access the necessary files on the thumb drive, and then change the code again when I'm back on the imac at home.

Anyhoo ... yesterday I tried to move the necessary folders to the thumb drive from my iMac, but got a a message saying

(directory name) is a directory -- not copied.

Can anyone tell me why it would do this -- may it have something to do with the permissions or author of the files -- perhaps the author of the files changes depending on what machine the updated code is written on?

What, exactly, did you do? Was this in a terminal or with the GUI?

Not specific to OS X when copying a directory, you should do it recursively, if using cp:

Code:

cp -r ....

I suppose you are using cp and not mv, since mv has no such error:

Code:

$ strings $(which mv) | grep "is a directory" 
(no output)

$ strings $(which cp) | grep "is a directory" 
%s is a directory (not copied).

(that, and the fact, the error goes something like:

Code:

cp: (directory name) is a directory (not copied).

I was doing it in the Terminal application, yes. Actually, scottn, that's the message I was getting, I think. I'll try again in the next few days at home and let you know.

Doing what in the terminal, though? Don't make us guess

Sorry-- I was trying to move (mv command) the directories using the Terminal Application -- and if I remember correctly, I was getting the 'not copied' message.

Got the same message today. I was on the mac at work during lunch, and decided to see what would happen. I created an empty directory in the home folder called vendors, and tried to copy it to the root folder, /. (Is that the right name?) When I did, I got

cp: vendors/ is a directory (not copied).

I get the same message with the mv command. Can anyone tell me what's going on? according to my research, you copy a directory with this command, but it's not working. And by the way, I can do this in the GUI (simply by dragging), but not from the command line.